The firm’s Oscar R. Rivera was the subject of a profile article in today’s edition of the Daily Business Review, South Florida’s exclusive business daily and official court newspaper. The article, which is titled “Real Estate Attorney Oscar Rivera Traces Career Roots to Shredding Carbon Paper,” chronicles Oscar’s career in the law, which began when he was still in high school in the 1970s. It reads:

Oscar R. Rivera’s first job at a law firm required him to go through the office trash cans to find and shred the discarded carbon sheets used to make copies of legal documents.

That was in the 1970s, and Rivera was in high school and working at a Miami management-side labor law firm. His shredding was meant to prevent a pro-union law firm from dumpster-diving to read the flimsy purple sheets to gain insight into its opponent’s strategy, Rivera said.

“If you looked at the carbon paper against the light, you could read the letter,” he said.

The firm’s Susan C. Odess authored an article that appeared as a “My View” guest column in the Business Monday weekly supplement of today’s Miami Herald. The article, which is titled “Clients Must Use Insurer’s Contractor or Face $10k Cap,” focuses on a new rule from Citizen’s Property Insurance that limits claim payouts to $10,000 unless policyholders agree to use the insurer’s preselected contractors. The article reads:

Beginning in February, Citizens will be able to force commercial and residential property policyholders who file claims for all non-weather water losses to use the company’s preapproved contractor or agree to limit their total payout to $10,000. This arbitrary figure is artificially low, as many claims involving water losses often cost much more to repair.

It is no surprise that Citizens and other insurance carriers would seek to impose such a measure in order to keep their claim payouts as low as possible. By forcing policyholders to use carrier-preferred contractors, insurers would be able to negotiate deeply discounted rates from their selected vendors, which will always be incentivized to acquiesce to the insurance companies in order to maintain their preferred status.

Property owners with damages in excess of $10,000 will be unable to vet and select the contractor of their choice unless they are willing to pay the additional expenses. Those who have relationships with companies in the construction field will be unable to turn to their most trusted sources unless they agree to the $10,000 cap.

For the policyholders, the fact that the insurance company and the contractor’s goals for keeping costs as low as possible would be completely aligned will create a significant conflict of interest between them and the contractor. This naturally leads to issues involving shoddy work and construction, which could easily leave property owners with no other recourse but to resort to litigation.

Partner John Catalano, who joined the law firm earlier this summer, authored an article that appeared in today’s Miami Herald as a “My View” guest column in the newspaper’s “Business Monday” special section. The article, which was titled “New Florida Law Helps Businesses Protect Against Frivolous ADA Lawsuits,” focuses on important legislative changes aimed at enabling Florida businesses to diminish their potential exposure to ADA barrier-to-access lawsuits. John’s article reads:

Despite its net positive effect on the lives of millions of Floridians and visitors to the state, an unintended consequence [of the Americans with Disabilities Act] has been the proliferation of frivolous lawsuits aimed primarily at racking up attorney and expert-witness fees against Florida businesses and property owners.

These lawsuits are sometimes filed by lawyers who recruit clients to blanket entire city blocks of businesses with demand letters posing an ultimatum to either pay a quick settlement or face the threat of an ADA lawsuit. There are even allegations that some lawyers are using Google Earth to view sites without ever having a client actually visit them.

Steven M. Siegfried, our firm’s founder who launched the practice 40 years ago in 1977, was the subject of a “Profiles in Law” article published by the Daily Business Review, South Florida’s exclusive business daily and official court newspaper. The article, which appears in today’s edition of the newspaper, chronicles his career and highlights his achievements as a construction law specialist, professor and writer for the last four decades.

The profile article, written by DBR reporter Samantha Joseph, reads:

Steven M. Siegfried wrote the book on construction law. The literal book. The one the American Bar Association published in 1987 as an early nod to a then-fledgling practice area.

His work, “Introduction to Construction Law,” became a standard reference for real estate and construction lawyers across Florida for the past three decades. Over several incarnations, it helped establish the Siegfried Rivera Hyman Lerner De La Torre Mars & Sobel partner as a foremost authority on a specialty he’s long championed.

The article notes that Steve’s other publications focus on construction lien law, construction defects, condominium warranty claims and the statute of limitations, culminating with his authoring of “Florida Construction Law” by Aspen Publishers in 2001.

It states that his concentration on construction and community association law began in 1976, when he foresaw that the real estate sector would become a pillar of the region’s economy that would require highly specialized practitioners. The article notes that his firm “will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. It employs 46 attorneys concentrating on real estate, construction, community associations, and property insurance . . . from offices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.”

This year our firm is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding. In 1977, Steven M. Siegfried had the vision to bring great lawyers and supporting staff together to focus on every aspect of Florida’s burgeoning construction, community association and real estate industries.

As Florida has grown, so too has SRHL. Maintaining our focus, we are now 46 attorneys in our three South Florida offices. As required by the evolution of the industries in which our clients excel, we have incorporated expertise in insurance, creditors’ rights, and the commercial transactions and disputes that relate to these core competencies. We also have developed an expertise in aircraft transactional work.

As we reflect on our 40 years of service in these vital industries, we take pride in having played significant roles in some of the most important and challenging projects throughout South Florida and the nation. We look forward to furthering our role as one of the most trusted sources for legal counsel and representation in these fields in the years to come.

Firm partner B. Michael Clark, Jr. authored a guest column that appeared as a “Board of Contributors” feature in today’s edition of the Daily Business Review, South Florida’s exclusive business daily and official court newspaper. The article, which was titled “Court Upholds Concurrent Cause Doctrine in Win for Property Policyholders,” focused on the positive ramifications for Florida commercial and residential insurance policyholders of the state Supreme Court’s recent decision in the case of Sebo v. American Home Assurance. Michael’s article reads:

The recent Supreme Court of Florida decision in Sebo v. American Home Assurance rejecting the “efficient proximate cause doctrine” in favor of the “concurrent cause doctrine” for property insurance claims represents a significant win for residential and commercial policyholders.

The state’s highest court has determined that the appropriate theory of recovery for claims in which two or more perils contribute to a loss but at least one of the perils is excluded from coverage is the concurrent cause doctrine. Under the rejected efficient proximate cause theory, when multiple perils cause a loss, it is the efficient cause — the one that sets the other in motion — to which the loss is attributed.

For the insurance industry, the efficient proximate cause doctrine has always been preferred. If the carriers are able to demonstrate that the efficient cause behind a loss is excluded from coverage under the policy, then the entire claim may be denied.

Sebo makes the concurrent cause doctrine the legal standard to be applied for property insurance claims in Florida. Now insurers must cover a loss even if the covered peril is the secondary cause of the loss, which was concurrent with but not the primary or efficient cause.

The firm’s B. Michael Clark, Jr. and Susan C. Odess wrote an article that appeared as the “My View” guest column in today’s Business Monday section of the Miami Herald. The article, which was titled “Insurers Make Mockery of Work Product Privilege Laws,” focused on the abuse by insurance companies of the state’s untenable work product privilege laws shielding their entire “claim file” from discovery in litigation. The article reads:

A series of misinterpreted and sometimes contradictory court rulings during the last decade have created a situation in which the state courts and federal courts in Florida disagree on whether insurance carriers’ claim files are subject to discovery by plaintiffs in first-party property litigation. As a result, insurers are now afforded greater work product protection than any others in Florida’s state courts by being allowed to shield important reports, estimates, communications and photographs that would be subject to discovery in the state’s federal courts as well as in many of the other courts in the country.

The work product doctrine, which is incorporated into both the Federal and Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, is intended to shield from discovery documents and communications that are created in anticipation of litigation. It has been extended by Florida’s state courts to include all insurance company reports, communications, correspondence and routine claims investigation documents simply because the companies deem these materials to be part of their claim file, regardless of the fact that these documents were not generated in anticipation of litigation but rather during the routine course of claim investigation.

This has created a de facto new “insurer claim file” privilege that exists solely to enable insurers to exempt relevant documents from discovery, and it has quickly become the most confusing and arbitrarily enforced privilege in the state’s legal system. Insurers routinely invoke this privilege to avoid divulging everything except for copies of the actual policy and any written communications they had previously sent to the policyholder.

It seems preposterous to identify all pre-loss reports, photographs and emails starting from the moment when an insurer first issued a policy to have been generated in preparation for litigation. Yet somehow the state courts in Florida have (mis)interpreted several rulings and created an all-encompassing work product immunity for everything that insurers deem to be a part of their sacred claim file, regardless of whether litigation was actually being contemplated.

The Daily Business Review, South Florida’s only business daily and official court newspaper, chronicles in its weekly “Dealmakers” column the work of South Florida professionals in putting together and finalizing many of the area’s largest real estate transactions. The firm’s Oscar R. Rivera was the featured Dealmakers in this week’s column, which appeared in today’s edition of the newspaper. The article, which is titled “Attorneys for Buyer Closed $74M Office Deal with Bonus Acre to Develop,” focused on his work in representing the buyer of the Doral Costa office park in a $73.75 million acquisition. It reads:

The reasons an affiliate of Triarch Investment Group wanted to acquire the 17.8-acre Doral Costa Office Park are clear.

The three Class A office buildings are 96 percent leased in a strong submarket. Tenants include Allstate Corp., HSBC Bank and Samsung. The property has nearly an acre of developable land.

“The Doral area is a very attractive area. Developable land in the heart of an office complex was very attractive to this buyer group,” said Oscar Rivera, a shareholder with Siegfried, Rivera, Hyman, Lerner, De La Torre, Mars & Sobel, who represented buyer Doral Costa Capital LLC.

“These buildings are anchored by a significant and well-established group of tenants,” Rivera added. “It was a very solid investment for the buyer group.”

But completing the $73.75 million transaction with the seller, an affiliate of Boston-based TA Associates Realty, required fast work.

I am proud to be participating in the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) RECon event, which will be taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center & Westgate Hotel May 22-25, 2016. This four-day educational program is the largest retail real estate exhibition and conference in the world, with more than 36,000 industry executives, retailers, financial companies, and product and service suppliers in attendance each year.

On Tuesday, May 24, I will be presenting the session titled “The Economics of a Lease: Developers and Retailers Perspectives,” which will cover the strategies and tactics of negotiating monetary provisions, including minimum and percentage rent clauses, security deposits, operating costs, real estate taxes and T/I payments. Participants will be led through an analysis of key elements of each of the lease provisions. The session is scheduled to take place from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Click here for additional program details.

Founded in 1957, ICSC is the global trade association of the shopping center industry with more than 60,000 members in the U.S., Canada and over 90 other countries.

I am proud to be participating in the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) University of Shopping Centers event, which will be taking place on the campus of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania on March 7-9, 2016. This three-day educational program will enable attendees to gain a higher level of knowledge of the retail real estate industry by learning directly from experienced professionals.

On Tuesday, March 8, I will lead the course titled “Economics of a Lease: Developers and Retailers Perspectives,” which will cover the strategies and tactics of negotiating monetary provisions, including minimum and percentage rent clauses, security deposits, operating costs, real estate taxes and merchants/marketing fund payments. The course is scheduled to take place from 2 to 5 p.m. Please click here for additional program details.

Founded in 1957, ICSC is the global trade association of the shopping center industry with more than 60,000 members in the U.S., Canada and over 90 other countries.